Bakke, N.K. (2021, March 2). The urban garden on the rooftop of a housing cooperative in Trondheim.
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I was not able to participate in the interview with Kneiken community garden at the set time since I was at the wheel driving and no time to stop.
Nonetheless, they let me listen to two students interviewing two members of Kneiken community garden. The two students were also working on their master thesis, and wanted to know more about the initiative. During the interview, I was a "fly on the wall,"
unable to affect the interview. The interview happened online on the 7th of March.
Why?
Kneiken community garden is one of the sustainable food activities in Trondheim that takes advantage of a space where it is dangerous to build and dig. This is because of quick clay in the ground. I was interested to know more about the establishment of the initiative, the management, their challenges, and overall their perspectives on other sustainable initiatives in Trondheim.
How?
The meeting was online through Zoom. We were five participants: me, two master graduate interviewers, and two members of Kneiken community garden. The questions were about how it all started, who uses it, the initiative's social aspect, and their challenges.
The establishment
It all started, as with the other initiatives, with some enthusiastic and ambitious individuals. They happened to discover the wasted space on Bakklandet and were lucky with their timing. The municipality had just gotten some
financial support to give initiatives such as Kneiken community garden.
This was a good starting point for the garden.
At the first meeting of interest, in March 2015, 60 people showed up. The enthusiastic founders realized that the interest was big in Trondheim. However, they soon discovered that keeping the members would be a constant challenge.
Motivational factors
The initiative is volunteer-based. Hence, the motivation to work in the garden is based on other factors than receiving a salary. The two members mention that some of the motivational factors may be that they do not have their own garden, have an interest in food, want to be social, or feel it is meditative to grow and be outdoors. No matter the motivational factor, they have a common goal that connects them - grow edible greens.
Challenges
> Get members. The initiative is based on people voluntarily participate in weekly chores which is a constant challenge to accomplish.
> Keep the members. One of the reasons they struggle to keep the members is that many students (especially international students) only stay in Trondheim for some years.
> Neighbors. Kneiken Community Garden did not know when they rented the space that the neighbors were already growing their own crops. That created a conflict that is now solved.
> Teach new members. Teaching the
KNEIKEN
Observation
new member how to do gardening demands energy and motivation from other members/volunteers.
Kneiken. (2019, May 05). Photo of their garden. Accessed 12.03.21 from https://kneiken.no.
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In Discover 1, every interaction with a sustainable food activity was done differently. The information regarding the initiatives was collected through desk research, guided tour, phone conversation, visit, and by listening to an interview. The methods have their positive and negative sides, which are essential to keep in mind when conducting the methods and using the information for analysis.
Guided tour
Observing the area and interviewing a resident during a guided tour has its advantages and disadvantages.
An advantage is that I get to hear the other participants' questions and ask my questions. They have different perspectives and backgrounds, which may lead to them asking different questions than I would. That way, I get information I would not get if I was alone. On the other hand, some questions were irrelevant for my master thesis, and there was not enough time for everyone to ask all their questions.
Consequently, some questions stayed unanswered.
Phone interview
Interviewing over the phone does not require much time and energy from the interviewee. The negative side of the method is that I was not able to observe the person. Body language and facial expressions can tell a lot about the feelings and perspectives of a person. However, in these times, this was a corona-friendly method.
Interview and observation I visited the roof top of a housing
cooperative and simultaneously asked questions. That felt as a more casual way to interview. It also may feel more comfortable for the interviewee to be in a safe environment.
Observation
During the meeting with Kneiken community garden, I was a "fly on the wall," unable to interact with the participants. One of the negative sides of this technique is that the interviewers did not ask the questions the way I would have, and I could not ask follow-up questions. As a result, I may have missed out on some information that could have been important for my thesis. On the other hand, the interviewer's insight, viewpoint and background was different than mine, and they asked questions that I would not have thought of, giving me interesting information.
Conclusion
To sum up, all methods have their strenghts and weaknesses.
Nonetheless, they did provide information about the initiatives' needs, perspectives, limitations, and challenges. In the Discover phase, the aim was to get a general overview and a greater understanding of the initiatives, and I believe the methods were sufficient for that purpose.